Lois_E begins a long MFW journey

gallygirl

Froggy-G wrote: »

If I understand well... You would like me to go around the country, stopping at my MSE buddies houses, to cook their food for the week, and then move on on a rota basis..??
There are loads more to French Gastronomy than rich sauces !

Froggy

I'm about 40 mins from Georgie, so put us in one after the other. Maybe on handover day you could do a celebratory dinner? Remember I'm on SW so I'm looking for low-fat food that tastes of butter & cream

Lois_E

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

Lots of us about, are you full time?

No. I go up and down between 0.4 and 0.6 depending on the timetable. I'm doing slightly over 0.4 at the moment. I don't think I could cope with much more than that with the two kids all by myself - X doesn't have any contact at all, and my family are all too far away to help (in different directions), so it's just me.

My tax credits renewal form came today. Have worked out all the numbers but couldn't get through on the helpline. :mad: I'm afraid my money for this year's going to go down a bit - my income for 2010-11 turns out to have been bigger than my estimate. However, I should get a little extra for last year because it seems they didn't allow for my increased childcare expenses when I informed them of some changes last October.

Seriously unimpressed with the passport photo machine this afternoon. I am hoping to take my kids on a cheap holiday to stay with my brother in France this summer, but that means getting them passports. The machine cost £5 a time for 5 photos - you get 3 poses and then have to choose one. DD was all right, but with DS it just kept saying "Warning - not passport compliant" but not making it clear what was wrong with it. We kept trying to put right whatever we guessed it might not be happy about, but after 9 poses we still hadn't managed one that it thought was OK. Then I gave up. I'll take them into the Post Office and ask why they're no good, and see what they say. I can't see for the life of me what's different between DD's supposedly compliant picture and DS's supposedly non-compliant one. So that was £20 instead of £10, and frankly £10 seems a lot for automated photos for two kids.

SJ1

Go to your local chemist instead for the photos, there is always one that has a handy camera that takes 4 shots and it usually digital these days so you can keep trying until it is right. The post office forms are usually quite clear, was his face in the middle of the photo? That may be it or sometimes it can be because they are smiling, you aren't allowed to smile

SJ

Lois_E

No, not smiling, face in middle of picture, looks just the same as DD's to me. Didn't know about the chemist thing. Thanks for suggesting it. I'll do that if the PO confirm that none of the ones we've got are good enough. I'm hoping, though, that they'll say one of them's OK.

gratefulforhelp_2

Lois_E wrote: »

No. I go up and down between 0.4 and 0.6 depending on the timetable. I'm doing slightly over 0.4 at the moment. I don't think I could cope with much more than that with the two kids all by myself - X doesn't have any contact at all, and my family are all too far away to help (in different directions), so it's just me.

I was in that situation with DD1 and its not funny. x

Iris_Blue

The passport pictures are scanned and the eyes etc have to exactly lined up and the face showing in the oval on the screen or the machine rejects them. It's normally because the height of the chair needs adjusting.

Mine looked right but was rejected for this reason, costing me an extra £4.

AuntieMabel

I went to one of the high street photo places when my boys needed their passports renewing. They took the photos with a digital camera and kept taking them until they were satisfied that they were acceptable. Also, if you keep the receipt, they guarantee they will take more photos for free if the passport agency reject them. Cost about £5 per child for 4 photos, but I thought it was worth it to know I'd get usable photos.

yukkibear

I did the same and took DD2 (3) to a photographer. Was well worth the extra £1 to guarrantee pics right the first time and took the stress away from making sure she was sitting right, not smiling etc.

Lois_E

I think the problem was that his eyes aren't at the right height on his face for the machine's criteria. I could get his face filling the oval (with the eyes not on the line) or I could get the eyes on the line but the face not centred in the oval. Comparing his pictures with DD's, I see that he is a little lower down than she is. I'd better take him to a photographer, then. Thanks everyone.

A good day today. Only spent a couple of quid on bread, plus another £12 on a second pair of those cheap jeans that I bought on Monday. When I finally had a moment to try them on (on Wednesday) I found they actually fit me properly. This is very rare with me and jeans - last happened about 10 years ago I think. So I thought, if it's going to be another 10 years until I find some more that fit this well, then I might as well have black ones as well as indigo, and went back for them today.

Also, I got through to the TC helpline and renewed for the year. So that's another thing off my list.

CathT

Hope you get the passport photos sorted. You've reminded me I need to do my TC renewal too so thanks for that! Hope your money doesn't drop too much, ours has gone down £20 a week and I'm feeling the difference!